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“Did you know I have a name?”
The question took Mike more or less by surprise, as he couldn't think of anything that had possibly provoked her to say that.
They laid with hands intertwined on the checkered red blanket outside the cabin, (as far as Hopper would let them go) gazing at the clouds above and sharing an orange double popsicle. “Those are cumulus,” Mike had mentioned excitedly, ever the nerd. “Those fluffy ones.” “No,” El said back. “That’s a bunny. See the ears?”
It was just shy of summer, just a few weeks before school let out.
He glanced over at her, watching the smile form on her lips. “...El?” he asked, admittedly confused.
“No. El is short for Eleven like Mike is short for Michael,” she explained, eyes lost in his. “And Will for William. Even Max for Maxine. I have a real name.”
Mike saw a hint of pride in her smile, and that enhanced his own. “Should I ask what it is next then?”
She hummed, looking up at the sky again. “Guess.”
Girl names. Mike thought of all the possible options. His mom, when pregnant with Holly, had a few baby name books on her nightstand and near her bedside. He and Nancy went through them a few times, only because they had a $10 bet going on their new sister’s name. Neither won, but Nancy argued she had come closer because at least Heather had the same first initial as Holly.
“Heather?”
El laughed a little bit, turning to look at him again, her eyes meeting his. “Nope.”
“Didn’t think so,” Mike said, realizing he was blushing. “How about…Chris-Christine? Christina?”
She shook her head next to him, plucking a few blades of grass and letting the breeze take them away.
Mike huffed. “Could I go by the alphabet? Alice? Amy? Andrea?”
“Andrea is pretty but not A,” she smiled, reaching for a dandelion. “Do you need a hint?”
“No, no, I got this,” Mike replied determined. “Hm. I could see Rebecca? Orrrr Bethany? No wait, Victoria?
El made a wrong answer buzzer noise like the one on Family Feud, her smile turning into laughter. “Hint?”
“Not yet.” His face suddenly changed into a shocked look and a certain thought entered his mind. “Oh God, don’t tell me it’s actually Eleanor.”
That got her to laugh, and even though he was wrong, Mike decided to take it as a win. “Fine. Speed round. Lucy. Ethel. Ricky. Fred. Tootie. Edna. Blair. Natalie. Ellen. Mallory. Alex P. Keaton. Cara. Winona. Greg. Marcia. Peter. Jan, Bob-,”
Her face practically lit up.
“Jan is so close,” El interrupted.
Mike’s heart started to pound. “Jan…short for Janet?”
El continued to shake her head. “Starts with a J, four letters.”
He hesitated for a few moments. “…Jean?”
Her smile was wide now, but she still shook her head. Waiting, waiting; just as he was.
“Jade? June? No? Alright. Jill? Still no? Joan? Oh..”
Then, finally, it came to him.
“…Jane?”
That was it. That was the one. It felt too right not to be.
At last, she nodded, beaming with pride and pure joy.
“Jane…?” he repeated, corners of his mouth rising, waiting for her to fill in the blank.
“Hopper.”
“Hopper.” he finished. “Jane Hopper.”
Wow. Her name left such a warm feeling on his tongue that he’d never felt before. He said her name over and over in his head. Jane Hopper. It was so elegant.
“It’s perfect.”
Now he could remember it from the book, the little pink blurb in the ‘J’ section. Jane: God is gracious.
He remembered. That was his bet.
The same one he ‘lost’ to with Nancy. He could almost feel his heart burst, but didn’t dare say anything.
Jane Wheeler. It had sounded so nice.
It still did.
But that was a thought, a discussion, for much, much later.
“Aunt Becky told me Mama had picked it the moment she found out I was a girl. She bought a bunch of books but still said Jane was perfect.”
Mike thought of his own name. Michael . He’d never thought it anything special. There were a lot of Michaels at school, and there were a lot of Janes in the world too. But still, Jane was special because it was her name. And she deserved it. That and so much more.
His thumb moved subconsciously towards her tattoo, underneath the blue hair tie, but she didn’t stop him.
He thought of the rain, the thunder.
Hey, um, I never asked your name.
Deathly quiet, she slowly rolled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt, revealing a simplistic pattern of bolded numbers that made Mike do a double take. 011? What’s a 011? Either way, he was just as equally amazed as he was impressed. “Is that real?”
She yanked her wrist back, and Mike almost jumped himself. He didn’t mean to frighten her. It was just-, “Sorry, I’ve just never seen a kid with a tattoo before.”
Her eyes bounced back from his to the ground, and for the split seconds she looked at him, Mike felt like he could almost read her. His heart was thundering, but not with nervousness, and their eyes met again with a more childlike curiosity. “What’s it mean? Eleven?”
Again, slowly, she pointed at her chest, gaze never breaking. A look of surprise came over Mike’s face. “That’s your name?” She nodded, then looked down again. Mike still smiled. “Eleven. Okay..um. My name’s Mike. Short for Michael. Maybe we could call you El? Short for Eleven.” It only made sense in the laws of nicknames.
She nodded again, and while Mike felt glad she liked the name - “Um, well, okay. ‘Night El.” - nothing would prepare him for the odd, butterfly-like feeling in his stomach when she finally replied with something other than ‘yes’ or ‘no.’
“‘Night, Mike.”
That was almost two years ago.
While Mike wasn’t a huge fan of his name, he couldn’t fathom having his identity chalked down to a number, let alone not knowing it for twelve years.
He hoped she felt avenged. In many ways, she had beaten them, especially that asshole Brenner, but in finding her own name, she’d also found her independence. One that simply couldn’t be spelled out in black ink on her wrist.
The tip of his thumb went above the tiny raised scar along her tattoo, and El’s grip slightly tightened in his.
He knew and she knew.
Not a number .
Mike never thought it was possible to have such hatred for a person as he hated Brenner.
But still. Mike was so proud of her. He turned, “Do you want me to start calling you Jane?”
This certain question took a while for her to answer, and Mike could tell she was deep in thought. He hoped he hadn’t upset her, or asked her far too soon, because he knew El shut down sometimes, mostly from stress. Mike’s own anxiety started to settle.
“No.”
Internally, Mike let out a huge breath of relief.
“I think Michael is a handsome name, but Mike is more… you . More…devil-may-care. Like a paladin. I-I know you as Mike,” she explained. “And I know my name is Jane. Or, the name I was supposed to have. But…it just didn’t work out that way. I guess I’m okay with being Eleven. I’m not his. Eleven is not Subject 011, at least not to me. Because then there’s El. El short for Eleven. Everyone knows me as El short for Eleven. And I like El short for Eleven. It just feels…right. Hop says I need a name for…legal stuff and that’s fine. Jane can be that. But for everything else…I’m just El.”
“Just El,” Mike repeated, a warm feeling inside of him. “I like that.”
“El short for Eleven and Mike short for Michael. Just Mike and Just El,” she said. “Mike and El.”
He brought both their hands up, and kissed hers gently, seeing that same parallel look on her face from Day 1.
Still pretty?
Yeah. Pretty-, really pretty.
(Forever and always, Mike knew).
“Just us.”